Zynga Sets Sights on Mobile Apps

The San Francisco-based company, best known for Facebook games like FarmVille and Mafia Wars, is developing mobile versions of its existing titles, such as its popular Scrabble-like "Words with Friends," for the iPhone and iPad.

"With 250 million people playing our games per month, all of those people should have mobile opportunities if they want to," said David Ko, the head of Zynga's mobile efforts and a former Yahoo executive.

The popularity of video games is spreading quickly in the U.S., and smartphones and tablets are the next obvious gaming arena. Already, more than 21 million people in the U.S. play video games on smartphones, according to research firm ComScore. Market research firm the NPD group also noted that as many as two-thirds of the nation's population is playing video games in some format.

The video game market is projected to grow $16.1 billion this year and $19.2 billion by 2014, according to a PricewaterhouseCoopers survey.

Zynga is estimated to be worth $9.3 billion, more than the value of established game companies, like Electronic Arts, publisher of Madden NFL and The Sims. But many of the top iPhone games are published by EA Mobile, giving Zynga quite a bit of competition in the industry.